…as in a mirror dimly

Typological pregnancy as a feature of biblical texts

I’ve been working on 1 Samuel 17 (David and Goliath) this week, and I’ve noticed the way in which Goliath is repeatedly referred to as ‘the Philistine.’

Perhaps this feature of this story marks it as open to typological reading: After this feature is repeated numerous times, the hearer senses that we are encountering ‘types’ or ‘categories’ here; not just individuals: ‘the Philistine’ and ‘the shepherd.’ This is further heightened as we find that the narrator shows both opponents making appeal to their gods at the near-climactic moment: this is, in fact, not just a battle between David and the Philistine, but between the LORD and the Philistine gods.

It seems then that this Former Prophet opens itself to typological significance. Such a reading of the text is not just foisted on a completely unsuspecting text by later pre-critical Christian interests. Francis Watson makes a good point – cited in Hamilton, ‘The Typology of David’s Rise to Power,’ SBJT 16.2 (2012): 4-25; 4:

What is proposed is not an anachronistic return to pre-critical exegesis but a radicalization of the modern theological and exegetical concern to identify ever more precisely those characteristics that are peculiar to the biblical texts.

I would suggest that typological pregnancy is indeed a characteristic of biblical texts. Goliath, in Scripture, was never just Goliath. He was symbolic of a category – a category that might grow and evolve as the Scriptures themselves develop.

Chrysostom is not to be scoffed at then, as he reaches a peculiarly Christian reading of the chapter, with the stone in the shepherd-bag typifying Christ himself:

Therefore, let us take in our hands that stone, I mean the cornerstone, the spiritual rock. If Paul could think in these terms of the rock in the desert, no one will in any way feel resentment against me if I understand David’s stone in the same sense. (ACCS, p. 274)

The stone was always pregnant with possibility; and Chrysostom now suggests that Christian readers can perceive it to have been pregnant with Christ.

6 Responses

That’s my impression of him. He doesn’t create wild allegories, as is sometimes said to be a problem of patristic interpretation; but he is attentive to the symbolic value of the material, particularly listening out for echoes of the gospel throughout Scripture. I would say that Chrysostom happily carries on the apostolic phenomenon of finding Christ attested in all the Scriptures.

He seems at times to bring his cautious emulation of christocentric apostolic interpretative practice to the forefront, such as in his comments on Psalm 9 (Commentary on the Psalms, p185):

“That [need to go beyond the surface meaning] is true of this verse too, while in other places we must take the words as we find them, and the meaning arising from them, like this example, ‘As Moses lifted up the serpent.’ We must accept that this happened – it did happen, in fact – and what meaning comes from it, namely a type of Christ. So at this place too you would not be wrong to take these words in reference to Jewish history:

You have sat on your throne giving right judgement. You have wiped out his name for ages, and for ages of ages. The enemy’s swords have finally failed, and you have destroyed cities. Their memory disappeared with a crash.

The fate of those who crucified Christ is notorious everywhere in the world and their cities destroyed; the devil’s wiles are defeated, and Christ’s providence has overtaken everything. These things, however, we should leave to the scholars to work out, and proceed to the next verse.”

Here Chrysostom finds both a ‘surface’ meaning, and a (cautious) Christ-related meaning, which is not unlike what the apostles themselves do in considering Psalm 2’s ‘rulers’ to refer to Herod, Pilate, and others.

Christologically (is that a word?) speaking, I would have guessed the Christ figure in the David and Goliath story would be David himself – the weakling (pointing to the Easter story) defeating the strong man (pointing to, perhaps, the accuser, the world and the flesh).
I suppose that does not discount the other recounting of the story, however.

Hi MWW, Yep, I’d agree with that – David is the anointed shepherd, who defeats God’s enemy. So in that sense, Christian readers should perceive him as a type of our anointed shepherd. But to me typology doesn’t have to have neat definition, so it wouldn’t bother me to also perceive the stone as a type of Christ. But it’s true that greater caution would need to be used for the stone than for David – so Chrysostom is a bit self-conscious about his reading above.

Chrysostom seems to be explaining his reasoning by saying that if Christ can be an antitype of a rock in Paul then he can be an antitype of any significant rock in a story. But it’s almost a cop-out, then, to say that the type is only in the character of David.

Do you think there is much of a difference in what the boundaries are for a type that is an object, like the stone/rocks, and a type that is an individual, say like Joseph?

Thanks for your thoughts. My sense is that for the NT writers, what’s crucial in setting boundaries is not the method of symbolic interpretation itself, or the categories of the types (although I’m sure your instinct is right that ‘people’ are more obviously conducive to typological readings than ‘objects’), but the specific capacity to point to Christ.